United States - 4098 Reviews

I'm kind of shocked that it has taken us so long to review any products by Ensure. I mean, it's not something I really go out of my way to drink, but they are a well known company, so it seems like our paths would have crossed before. I would have given them a friendly wave, in the form of a review, and been on my way to the next beverage that awaits me down the road. You know what? That is exactly what I am going to do right here.

Ensure lives in the realm of nutritional beverages, in other word protein drinks. They have their hard hitting lines for those who work out and are looking to put on some mass. Then they have their clear line, which it seems is more for normal people, who just aren't getting what they need out of their meals. This little bottle not only contains 9g of proteins but it is also packed with a whole slew of vitamins and minerals that the body needs to keep it running at an optimal level. That is all well and good, but it's not really what we care about here at Thirsty Dudes. We care about our health, but this website is here to inform people about the way various beverages taste. So on to that: This tastes like someone took a general protein drink and watered it down before adding flavoring. One it was nice and de-chalkified (well mostly) they added some peach flavoring that is just slightly more on the side of artificial than actual fruit.

Overall I feel pretty good about this. It's not a functionality I need in my life, but if you are someone who does, then there is no need for you to fear it's flavor.

Today has proven to be quite a blustery winter day even for me. What do I mean by that? Well here in Buffalo, you gain kind of a winter skin every year. You begin to not really care about the cold too much and by late January through March, you'll have days that are in the high thirties where you just don't wear a coat at all. You become accustomed to it. It's completely different that those people that wear shorts in the wintertime. Those people are just idiots.

Part of the whole "Being From Buffalo" thing is that I just drank iced tea and ate ice cream after walking my dog outside in six degree weather with twenty five mile per hour winds. That's not right to those of you from the South but up here, we handle the cold like you handle your sweaty, sticky, hundred degree weather.

The iced tea I drank was this large bottle from Trader Joe's where Jay and myself went last week. We bought the dumbest stuff available; mochi, iced tea, dried mango, and juice: Hardly grocery shopping. This tea took the backs seat while I destroyed the original green that I love so much. This is a different animal in and of itself. If I were to taste this not knowing that blueberry and/or pomegranate touched it, I don't think that I would have been able to guess what it was specifically. The more I drink it, though, the more I will just accept that they're in there messing around like a bunch of college teens who's parent's went to the grocery store and left them alone. It's half way between floral and fruity but that's only fifty (or twenty five percent each) of the drink. The other fifty is that nice base of a bitter green tea that loves me more than I've loved many girlfriends.

Would I take this over the regular green tea? I don't think so. This is "special occasion" stuff. Not because it's any more expensive, but just because I'd have to be in the right mood for it. The green tea I'm always here for like a truly supportive companion that takes all his melodramatic girlfriends to the hospital as soon as they complain about a headache or stomachache. He'll learn. I did.

Paint then caulk. Paint then caulk. Paint then caulk. That's all Francis was doing. He had just moved into a new house and had to caulk and paint the whole house himself. He had some time off and just wanted to knock it out as soon as he could. Paint then caulk. Such a time consuming process. Paint, wash brushes, caulk. Over and over. He knew he could spice it up a bit so he took a break for lunch and saw a new energy drink that he hadn't had before. SuperSours sounds like something he would have drank as a kid. As an adult with a fresh mortgage, he now looked back fondly at his day of youth filled with just playing with friends until the sun set night after night. Now it was just office work day in and day out. Wearing heavily starched shirts with ties, khakis, and dress shoes every day just to sell office supplies. In hindsight, it was not the life that he ever thought that he would lead.

He took a drink and it took him back to those days. He took another sip and just closed his eyes and reminisced about playing in the pool with friends, playing hockey in the street, and football in people's front yards. It was a sour that was somewhere in between a Warhead and a Jolly Rancher. It was a familiar taste that he hadn't had in years. He took another sip and it seemed more and more childish and less like it was a good idea to buy it. What was he doing? It was an energy drink that didn't taste like an energy drink, which was good, but it was a sour, sour apple drink. That was kids stuff. Why would kids drink an energy drink? Kids are filled with energy. Francis was feeling more like an adult with every sip. He said to himself, "Hey, kids can't fix a sink like me. Kids can't crunch numbers to make deals like me. I was a dumb kid. Now look at me. I've got a great haircut, a semi-babe as a girlfriend, and a sweet new house. Who needs this kid stuff? I'm a friggin' adult!" People looked at him like he was crazy. He slowly got up and walked back to his house. He grabbed the tube of caulk and started again and though to himself, "Oh yeah. This sucks. I wish I was a kid again...again."

Why is it that if there is a mix of lemon and lime in soda it at least has a quasi real lime taste to it, yet when said flavor is reduced to solely lime what is left taste remarkably like a green Freeze Pop? It's a mystery for the ages.

Canada Dry has found somewhat of a middle ground. When you first take a sip you get that uber sweet Freeze Pop taste, but without all of the harshness that is normally associated with them in their unfrozen state. The aftertaste fades into a somewhat believable lime flavor.

It's an interesting and enjoyable flavor, but only in small amounts. Half of this 20oz bottle was too much for me. I'm sure kids and sugar fiends alike would down this by the gallon, but I'll stick to stealing sips from someone else.

No matter how they dress it up, if you purchase a beverage that has the word “Nestea” on it, you know that you are in store for something sub par. Along with Brisk this company is half of a duo that are the only companies I have ever heard of to make harsh iced tea. Every other tea I've had was either smooth, bitter or sugar water. While this does fall under the sugar water category it also puts your throat in a moderate amount of discomfort. It's not quite a burn, but it's something that is weird and very much present in ever sip.

It has a slight fruity flavor that neither tastes like pomegranate nor passionfruit. Both of them have very specific flavors that just aren't present. They are also nowhere to be seen in the ingredients list. It seems that it's just an arbitrary name they slapped on their garbage tea.

If you're going to add flowers to any beverage, the safe bet is to use jasmine. It's been a staple of Chinese tea for thousands of years. It's also lighter on the floral taste than some others. Jasmine tea is the gateway drug into other botanical beverages. While there is no tea contained in this bottle, the same logic stands. If you wanted to buy a Blossom Water for someone who was not familiar with floral drinks, this would be the one to start with. The taste of the jasmine is more in the after taste, and it's not as intense as the others are. Its taste is extremely pleasant.

The base of this drink is a plum flavored water that has been sweetened with agave and erythritol (even though you can't taste it at all). The fruit flavoring is stronger than normal flavored water, but it's not nearly strong enough to be considered any sort of juice. I would also like to clarify that the plum used in here is the type that you could find in any grocery store in America. That is an important note of distinction because I've had some drinks from the Asian market that say they are plum flavored and they taste like moldy meat. They are obviously the grossest things ever. I assure you that there was not one second while I was sipping on this beverage that the word “gross” crossed my mind.

Overall this is a near perfect drink that you can slowly sip as you sit back and relax, to contemplate your day. I know I have said similar things about their other flavors, but man, that is exactly how this drinks make me feel.

How do you ring in the New Year? Do you kiss the person standing next to you? Do you make resolutions about losing weight? Do you drink until you can't see straight and drive home like a total idiot? Not me. I sit around with family watching Dick Clark's New Year extravaganza until about five to twelve when we prepare. We prepare to irritate the neighborhood by blowing horns, spinning noisemakers, setting off car alarms, and banging pots and pans. Five minutes later, we go inside because it is now the first, which doubles as my uncle's birthday. He makes a toast, which, this year was "the golden rule." I don't come from a drinking family, so not everyone drinks. Kids drink non-alcoholic champagne and most of the adults do, too. I drank raspberry iced tea from the Keurig.

It's how I ring in the New Year. New drinks. Thirsty Dudes doesn't stop. 2013 to 2014 is just one more year we do this. This iced tea started the year off right, too. It was lightly sweetened. It tasted like a watered down raspberry Snapple. It had a good raspberry taste and was a lot less sweet than the sweet tea, which I love. This was good and I was actually surprised, even after stirring and making it to the bottom of the glass, that there wasn't a "sweet spot" in there somewhere. It was well blended, well flavored, and a good way to kick in the New Year.

This is a drink for a warm summer day down in Georgia. This humid 90+ degree mess is “warm” to the locals, but to northerners like myself it's “sweltering.” I don't know how people get anything done down there. When the weather is that hot I just want to be a bum and sit in front of a fan until the sun falls down. Of course I live in the land of 5 months of winter, where I also want to do nothing except hide under mounds of blankets and either read or play Zelda and Final Fantasy games, so who am I to talk?

The label on this says it's half tea and half lemonade, split right down the middle. My taste buds assure you that that is not the case. To me it tastes more like 65/35 split with the higher side going to the tea. You can taste the peach tea more than the lemonade, but the all American summer beverage is still very present in this liquid. Actually this could very well be an even split if the lemonade they used was a little on the weak side. You can taste the lemons, but there is no tartness to it at all. Oh, and the peach flavoring they used is natural and it really tastes like you're biting into a fuzzy fruit instead of a gummy ring.

Sure, I would have preferred that there was more of a sting from the lemonade to this, but when it's “warm” down south, this would do just fine in keeping me cool, refreshed and with happy taste buds.

It's not all green, but you might say that it's mostly green. Let's tally up the ingredients and see where we stand.
Apple …€“ Could very well be green.
Banana …€“ Could be green, but probably wouldn't taste very good. The fact that there is a very distinct banana flavor in here makes me think it was ripe and yellow.
Mango …€“ Orange, brown and yellow.
Pineapple …€“ Not even a chance of it being green.
Kiwi …€“ This is a glorious green, and I wish most of this drink were made of it.
Spirulina …€“ I had to look it up, but it certainly is green.
Chlorella …€“ It's green. I think it has something to do with chloroform, err I mean chlorophyll. I don't think this drink it going to make anyone pass out.
Other greens used: Broccoli, spinach, barley grass, blue green algae and parsley.
Ingredients included in the “Dried Greens Blend” that are not green at all: Garlic and ginger.

So as it stands we have nice green ingredients and five none green. I will give them their very green moniker. It looks like green sludge, so why not? It tastes pretty good. The base of this is similar to the Bolthouse and Naked “green” drinks. It's pretty sweet tasting and mostly taste like fruit and not the other additives. The only difference I can really tell is that it has a stronger presence of banana. It's a nice alternative, at about the same prince point.

Dear Everyone,

We all agree that candy canes aren't very good, correct? The flavor is just okay, and there is too much substance to them, at least for a mint. On top of that at some point in their consumption they become flat out messy. Sticky faces, sticky hands, or worse yet, sticky gloves. They just aren't worth it. I mean if you absolutely need that flavor in your life, which I highly doubt anyone does, just eat a starlight mint. I understand the holiday esthetic has a lot to do with this particular candy persevering, but some on. Enough is enough.

The reason for the above rant is because this tastes like someone brewed some coffee with the wrong proportions of grounds to water, and while it was still the temperature of the sun they melted a handful of candy canes into it. It's something that a dumb kid would do. Let's be honest here, it's something I would have done when I was a kid…€¦or you know in the past couple of weeks, just to see how it would work/taste. After that they duped some cocoa in it and way too much milk. The result is that this has a base of a very weak coffee with not enough chocolate in it to make it taste like a real mocha. The peppermint flavor just sits on top of everything like it owns the place. Lucky for us this jerk is only seasonal and he won't be mucking up our drinks for much longer. I mean sure it definitely has a Christmassy taste to it, but it just could have been done better.

Bolthouse products are normally better than average, but they haven't been doing that good of a job getting the recipes right for these seasonal flavors. Don't worry your regularly scheduled programs will be on soon.

I've been reading Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World and I've learned a lot about the history of pop, or soda, or whatever you want to call it. I find it very interesting, and it's a good read. While I have a love for your classic sodas, I would love to go back in time and make a change. I'm pretty sure that the world would be a better place if sugar had never been added to fizzy drinks.

As I sit here sipping on this can of Solixir I keep thinking to myself this is great. It has an excellent taste (white grape and lime mixed together to give it an unusual citrus taste), and there are only 13g of sugar in here that occurs naturally in the fruit juice used. The thing in that there is a little something in the back of my brain that tells me that there is something wrong. That thing is in fact that it is a fairly dry soda and it's “missing” sugar. Now, I only feel that way because my body has been programmed over the last 3+ decades to expect soda to be uber sweet. The thing is it doesn't need it. If I had started off associating a taste like this with what soda should be I would be completely disgusted with how sweet a “normal” pop is if I had one now for the first time.

On top of being a healthier soda, this also has a botanical blend added to it that helps with concentration, without the spike and crash that caffeine and other energy drink garbage has.

This is what I want. This is how things would be in a perfect world. People wouldn't be so overweight and overridden with diabetes (well at least to some extent).

When buying a home, how many times in one day can you go to the hardware store? I have gone to Home Depot at least once a day, today twice, for the last week and a half. Caulk, wood, paint, primer, faucets, ceiling fans, wall sconces, and so on and so forth. It's a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of time. Today I decided to treat myself a little bit.

Sure, I needed paintable caulk. Sure I did. Why wouldn't I? On my way to the first trip to the store, I decided to get something nice to drink for myself to pre-reward myself for an impending job well done. I saw this at the store and it stood out because I knew we hadn't done it. Sometimes I think we have done it all but then I leave my guard down, new stuff fills the shelves and it seems our job will never end. I bought it without thought and headed home for my double entendre "Caulkfest" of an afternoon with a father/son electrical duo.

This tea put me in a good place. Sure my hands were filled with caulk and plaster dust and general grime, but when I took sips of this drink it put all that in the back of my mind. This tea was a great middle ground between a sweetened and unsweetened tea. Sure, I know, once you add sugar, it's no longer an unsweetened tea, but it's lightly sweetened and nothing is masked by the sweetness of a sweetener. You can taste the bitterness of the oolong tea and although there is no actual honey in the drink, there is essence of honey that you can really taste. There is also essence of caramel, which, if you think about it, you can taste.

This is a wonderful addition to the great teas that Tazo makes for us. If you've got a long day of monotonous tasks ahead of you, maybe you should buy yourself a vacation drink like this.

Uh hello, I'd like to speak to your supervisor. You see I spent a lot of money, and I mean a cubic butt ton, on my tropical vacation and it was nothing like I was promised. In the brochure it was listed as a tropical fantasy. Now, I know that means different things to different people, but I believe there is a general underlying theme to everyone's thoughts on a perfect vacation of that sort. I can assure you what I received was nothing close to that. I chose the pineapple package. I feel like that's a very specific niche, and as I said it just was not delivered.

For starters there is not a lick of pineapple anywhere to be seen in here. It's all sugar, pears and apples and that's pretty much what the base of it is like. On top of that is the vaguest of pineapple flavors that I wouldn't ever be able to place is I wasn't looking for it. The addition of sucralose along with the high fructose corn syrup does not help a thing, especially since it still contains 48g of sugar.

As I said I am completely unhappy and I would like a refund. Oh, you'll reimburse the fifty cents it cost to my account. Well thank you. I'm sure the time it took me to contact you about this is worth more than the amount reimbursed, but it's the principle of it all.

Apparently this town's club is not very selective about it's members. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Everyone is welcome, which results in nothing terrible, but at the same time nothing is stupendous. This is a complete middle of the road cola. It tastes like store brand. Even though it's in a glass bottle, it's still sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. It's not quite Coke, it's not quite Pepsi, but it's that middle ground that you all know and enjoy, at least somewhat.

Chuck didn't like Christmas. It was always the time where everyone was very thoughtful and it made him feel like a pile of garbage. Everyone else was happy, buying gifts for each other and he just never wanted to participate in any of the festivities. He never was at a store and thought, "Oh, Karen would love this." He knew it was him and he could probably fix it if he just tried harder but he was in his thirties and if it didn't just happen by now, it never was going to.

This Christmas was no different. He went out on Christmas Eve and just bought everyone gift cards. He knew it's what people could use but not necessarily what they wanted, which also made him feel bad.

He went to his girlfriend's parent's house for Christmas and felt like he was just going through the motions. Everyone was open presents around him, smiling, and just shredding paper like it was suffocating the presents it was encasing. He just sat there and opened his, respectfully and to himself. Socks, ill-fitting sweater, videos in a format he can't use...same thing every year. All of a suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was his girlfriend's dad with a cup of tea. He was a cynical man himself and just gave Chuck a nod like he understood. He smelled it and it was rich with cinnamon. He took a sip and it was a very strong cup of tea but it was good. It was almost like a spicy, candy cinnamon but it wasn't sweet. There were some other spices in there that made it a pretty bold tea. It defiantly perked him up and allowed him to at least fake a smile as people opened their awful gifts from him.

A couple minutes later when the wrapping paper was all picked up and everyone was catching their breath, Chuck was sitting with a half full cup of tea thinking to himself that he couldn't finish it. It was good but it was just too much for him to choke down the rest of. It was too strong and sure he could have steeped it less but it really wasn't in there that long. He wished everyone happy holidays but was happy to just go home and go to sleep like the Grinch he knew he was and the old man that he knew he was becoming.

Let us start a petition to get lemons removed as the standard for flavoring water in restaurants. Lemons are overrated. They are low on the totem of citrus. I'm not exactly sure what is at the top; maybe blood oranges. Oh man, a nice slice of blood orange in your water would be fantastic. I am a realistic man though, and I know that's never going to happen right off the bat. Lets take baby steps and start off with limes. They are of close relation to the lemon; they even look the same, except green. I know they will still carry the same gross bacteria from improper storage and preparation, but at least it will taste a bit better.

If you're wondering what it would be like, because you don't understand how your imagination works, mix a packet of True Lime into a glass of water. It's pretty much the same thing as squeezing a slice of the actual fruit. Who needs imagination anyway?

There are trace amounts of cane sugar in this for some reason. I'm 99.9% sure the True Lemon doesn't have that, and I'm not exactly sure why it's in here. It doesn't taste sweet, but it gives me the illusion that this is the world's most watered down limeade. I just don't understand why it's necessary. Let the citrus do it's work, without assistance. It has to learn some how.

Ahh, Christmas Eve. 'Tis the time for me to wrap all the presents I bought in one day while the little buddy is away. Did I succeed? Ha! No. I am actually writing a review instead of wrapping presents. Will I catch gruff for it? Probably. Will this review write itself? Nope. You see the priority of things in my life. Review, then joy.

It's snowing here and this is a summer drink. Pomegranate lemon green tea: Summer drink. It might just be the lemon but if we're talking about season fruit, isn't pomegranate a fall fruit? I've got one in the kitchen but I bet it's going to be alright. Why? Because I'm no fruit connoisseur, that's why.

This is a good drink, even if I have to go out after the review and shovel. It, as most Made drinks do, have a good green tea bitterness. The pomegranate is there and just a titch of lemon that you can actually taste. I really have enjoyed Made and this is no different. Their green tea line is good because they've got a good base and everything else is just icing.

Why is orange drink necessary in this day and age? I mean Tang was important because it went to space, but normal people aren't traveling past the stratosphere. It's not like orange juice is expensive by any stretch of the imagination. Sure the cheaper stuff is made from concentrate and has added sugar at times, but it doesn't have as much sugar as any orange drink, nor is it as concentrated.

I would much rather have preferred a little bottle of the cheapest orange juice in the world to this. There is only 10% juice in here, and I feel like 20% of what's left is sugar. It's sugar water with a slight orange flavor to it. The flavor is actually more tangerine than orange too, but in a fake sort of way.

I can't even make it through ¼ of this bottle without getting annoyed that someone would purchase this over real juice. There wouldn't even be a price difference, unless you went for a higher caliber of juice.

Bleh. This is gross. I really like Sweet Leaf stuff. Even those strange mint ones. I was happy to see them integrated into stores locally because there were only select places that I could get them around me. This though, this blows. This is some of the worst diet iced tea I've ever had. It has single handedly soiled the good name of sweet tea and slapped the face of the people that worship it. It tastes like it's almost a decent sweet tea as a base. Ingredients are simple until you reach the devil that is sucralose. Filtered water, black tea, citric acid. That's the making of a good, long lasting tea.

You want to know what the best diet tea is? Unsweetened tea. This is swill. The sucralose absolutely ruins whatever integrity this tea could have had. Congratulations, murderer. You have struck again.

You want to know what the best diet tea is? Unsweetened tea. This is swill. The sucralose absolutely ruins whatever integrity this tea could have had. Congratulations, murderer. You have striken again.

This is my second go at Harmless Harvest's raw coconut water. When I tried it for the first time, it apparently had been mistreated, temperature wise, at some point in its travels and it had started to spoil/turn. Note to all of you reading out there, if you get a coconut water that fizzes when you open it, dump that little guy right down the drain. I assure you it will taste completely horrible.

Now that I have a bottle that is fresh, and whose molecular makeup hasn't changed, I'm ready to drink up. If you have ever spent far too long trying to open up a coconut you found on the beach with improper tools, then you will remember this taste from your payoff. There is no other way to describe this other than to say it tastes fresh. Over the years I have tasted dozens of different coconut waters and this is the finest I've drunk. It has a certain sweetness to it that is long in the processing the other companies use. It's a sweetness that is appreciated. You see most companies pasteurize their products by subjecting them to very high temperatures. In that process the flavor is changed and nutrients are destroyed. To keep things pure Harmless Harvest presses the coconuts with thousands of pounds in order to eliminate the bacteria that pasteurization kills off. The results are much tastier with higher health benefits. It's a win-win that you should become a part of.